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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020022">we make our own way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay'>carloabay</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it's not a big deal [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Consent, F/F, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Smut, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, adrenaline crashes, shameless killing eve parodies, this just sort of happened i'm sorry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:21:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She's done enough, she's seen enough, and she wants to go home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton &amp; Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it's not a big deal [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalance_blackhill_shipper_1/gifts">avalance_blackhill_shipper_1</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/KGBRomanova/gifts">KGBRomanova</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not  t e c h n i c a l l y  a multichap, but there's going to be another chapter after this and then I'm (probably) done. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maria’s shower pressure is glorious. Natasha stands under the spray with her head bent, hot water scoring her back and shoulders. The tiles of the wall are cool and misty. She can feel a bruise forming over her nose.</p><p>She’s crashing. All the adrenaline is ebbing away from her; from the interrogation, being dangled over the shaft, the stink of cologne in her nose, and from meeting with Banner, the slam of his hand on that rickety table, click of a gun. Leaving her legs trembling and her head full of fizz.</p><p>Maria’s busy, so Natasha takes as long as she likes.</p><p>
  <em>Barton’s been compromised.</em>
</p><p>She’d been given no further information. Even over the phone, she’d known it was just a cheap nudge to get her ass in gear, but even so, she’d ground her teeth resentfully when Coulson had met her back on the bridge with a flat expression and orders from Maria to get herself cleaned up.</p><p>“I’m not a dog, Coulson,” she’d snapped. “It’s been a long day. I’d like some answers.”</p><p>“You’ll have them,” Coulson had said, turning away.</p><p>She is their dog. Subtle, poisonous little attack dog. Bark loud enough and she gets tossed something to do, blueprints to puzzle out, opposition to shoot, baby agents to put the fear of God into.</p><p>She wants Barton back. Everything’s getting too big, too tangled. No attack dog is worth anything against a bear like whatever the hell happened to Selvig and the Tesseract.</p><p>∆</p><p>“Where’s Romanoff?” Fury asks. Maria eyes the security footage on her tablet of Bruce Banner fiddling about dubiously with a piece of equipment.</p><p>“Wasting the water in my shower,” she says in an undertone.</p><p>“She has her own cabin,” Fury says. Maria looks up, and he’s staring grimly out of the bridge windows. “Tell her to use it.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Maria replies automatically.</p><p>∆</p><p>“We got a hit,” Sitwell says. Maria only has to give her a look, not one meant specifically for her, not one she's been hoping for, but all the same, Natasha turns on her heel and leaves. She knows the orders by now.</p><p>The flight is long, and the co-pilot seat is empty. She misses him, crappy jokes and constant whining and all. Steve Rogers, marvel of science, the greatest soldier since Achilles, sits with his shoulders up by his ears, helmet dangling from one wrist by the straps. Natasha doesn’t try to make conversation. He looks ridiculous in that theatrical uniform, and she’d bet he knows it.</p><p>If she cared enough, she’d feel sorry for him.</p><p>“Drop down, Agent,” Maria’s voice barks in her ear. They haven’t spoken, not properly, for at least a week, not since she was dropped unceremoniously in Russia like a sack of flour, for <em>recon</em> of all things. She supposes they think she deserves a nice quiet mission after the past few fiascos she’s been mixed up in. Or maybe they want to make sure she’s off the radar for a while. Fat chance.</p><p>And anyway, it wasn’t <em>her</em> fault the Leipzig mission went to shrapnel hell. Morse had set the charges.</p><p>She drops below the thick clouds, and Stuttgart glitters beneath the jet, a spidery map of winking stars, gold, red, blue, silver.</p><p>“You’re on in ten minutes,” Natasha says over her shoulder. “Knock ‘em dead.” She sounds flat and bored, but adrenaline is rising again, and she knows she’s headed for another crash, soon.</p><p>“Thanks,” Rogers replies, and he pulls on his helmet.</p><p>∆</p><p>“Selvig?” asks Thor, the picture of hurt surprise.</p><p>“An astrophysicist,” says Coulson. Natasha can see his wheels turning.</p><p>“He’s a friend,” Thor replies, and okay, that was not expected.</p><p>“Loki has him under some kind of...spell,” Natasha cuts in. The second adrenaline crash is on the horizon. She digs her fingers into her palms. “Along with one of her own.” She can see Maria listening, soaking up everything, but when she looks over, she might as well be staring at a statue.</p><p>“I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He’s not leading an army from here.” She will not zone out. She just won’t do it.</p><p>“I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him.”</p><p>“Have care how you speak,” Thor says sharply, and Natasha jerks out of a half-doze. “Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother.”</p><p>“He killed eighty people in two days,” Natasha says before she can stop herself. <em>He took Clint and turned him into some kind of slave</em>. She doesn’t want Loki dead, or the Tesseract back, or the world saved. She wants Clint on one side and Maria on the other, and she wants a snack and a nap.</p><p>Stark walks in, swagger in a suit, talking, talking, talking. Natasha slips into a resentful daydream, her eyes sliding to Maria, over and over again.</p><p>Her ass really does look fantastic in that suit.</p><p>∆</p><p>“Romanoff, on Loki,” Maria says, the instant Stark and Banner walk out. “I want anything out of him you can get.” Natasha stops in her tracks, steeling herself to turn away and start walking again. But she’s had just about enough.</p><p>“Barton was there,” she says, and Maria looks up, surprised. Her under-eyes are purple with sleeplessness. “I know he was.” She’s aching, tired. She wants to <em>sleep</em>.</p><p>“Containment is—“</p><p>“I know where it is,” Natasha snaps. </p><p>“This is a mess, Romanoff. I can’t give you anything.”</p><p>Maria’s face is open. Natasha can read between the words, can read <em>I’m sorry</em> and <em>this isn’t easy for me, either</em> in her wide eyes. Someone passes between them, and Maria’s face shuts down again. Natasha wants to punch something.</p><p>“I know,” she says instead, and she walks away.</p><p>Two aliens, one tin can, two chemically enhanced idiots, and a sharpshooter she misses so damn much it’s like craving for a drug. She wants to turn to Clint and pour her thoughts out, she wants to hear him theorise in unconnected rambles, she wants to get on a mat with him so they can pummel each other. Her mind is going in circles.</p><p>The containment model is just a big ugly cylinder of thick glass and metal. Loki’s sitting there, easy as can be, loose limbs and pale face like white card. His hair is greased back. He looks like a comic book villain. He looks like a Shakespeare actor. He looks dangerous, eyes like knives, and Natasha subtly rearranges her walk. She already knows how she can play this.</p><p>∆</p><p>She’s jumpy by the time she gets to the lab, and it’s good they’re all at each other’s throats, because she was about to tear someone limb from limb anyway.</p><p>She has to step in before Bruce Banner starts to throttle the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.</p><p>“Did you know about this?” he snaps at her, the second she gets through the door.</p><p>“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” she replies calmly, but she’s thinking about Loki, and what might be building behind Banner’s cool, angry eyes.</p><p>“I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed,” he snorts. She can’t argue, there.</p><p>“Loki is manipulating you,” she tries, switching tack, but he doesn’t look appeased.</p><p>“And you’ve been doing what exactly?” What does he think she is, a honey pot?</p><p><em>He’s not wrong</em>.</p><p>“You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you,” she snaps.</p><p>“Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy,” Banner says. “I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction!”</p><p>She’s done. She’s <em>so</em> done. She digs her fingers into her palms, thinking about fading into the background. She doesn’t like her odds if things get bad, and she’d have to get Fury to safety first. The arguing rises, reaching a pitch, but to her it just becomes five grown men snapping and snarling at each other like teenagers on a playground.</p><p>"I thought humans were more <em>evolved</em> than this," Thor says, and Fury rounds on him.</p><p>"I'm sorry, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" he snaps.</p><p>"Did you always give your companions such mistrust?" Thor inquires, all lordly.</p><p>"Are you boys really that naïve?" Natasha cuts in, and they all look at her. "S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats." It's not hard to understand. She's a threat. She's monitored. She lives with it. It's not like they could stop her doing anything she liked if they tried.</p><p>Attack dog.</p><p>"Captain America's on a threat list?" Bruce says sharply.</p><p>"We all are," Natasha snaps at him. A headache is building behind her eyes, and she can't be bothered to coddle him anymore. He's a bomb about to go off. Loki's getting his damn wishes granted one after the other.</p><p>"You're on a threat list?" Stark snorts, turning to Rogers. "Are you above or below angry bees?" His tone is mocking, but his eyes are flashing.</p><p>Rogers curls his hands into fists. Natasha can get behind that feeling.</p><p>"I swear to God, Stark, one more crack..."</p><p>"Verbal threat!" Stark chirps. "I feel threatened." She's going to throttle him. She is.</p><p>She wants to turn around and slam her head against the wall. She glares at them instead, Stark and Rogers squaring up, Fury hopelessly outnumbered, Thor looking vaguely amused and Banner standing there like a pot boiling over.</p><p>
  <em>I'm going to kill someone.</em>
</p><p>It's been far too long. Maria should be here, hands on her hips, breathing like a bull and glaring them all down. But she's not. She's two floors away, working, working. </p><p><em>I'm going to kill someone</em>.</p><p>"Agent Romanoff, would you please escort Doctor Banner to his-"</p><p>"Where? You've rented my room?"</p><p><em>I'm going to kill someone</em>.</p><p>"The cell was just in case-"</p><p>"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!" The room goes utterly silent. Natasha drags herself back to the surface. Something is wrong. Banner looks at the floor, at her, at the corner of a table. "I got low," he mumbles. "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!" Stark looks like someone kicked him in the kidneys. Rogers has this frown on his face, one lip stuck under the other. "So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!"</p><p>He's moved backwards. He's right by the sceptre, hand on the staff, and he's looking at her. Natasha goes for her gun like she's moving through treacle.</p><p>"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff, you wanna know how I stay calm?" He's got a look carved from granite on his face. Adrenaline, goddamn adrenaline again.</p><p>"Doctor Banner," Fury says slowly. "Please put down the sceptre." He looks down, down at his hand, and he's surprised, his eyes widen, if only for a fraction of a second.</p><p>She knows what it is.</p><p>A computer beeps, jerking them all out of a trance, and Banner turns, hiding his face.</p><p>"Sorry, kids," he grunts. "You don't get to see my party trick after all."</p><p>"Got it," Stark says, moving over.</p><p>"You've located the Tesseract?"</p><p>"I can get there faster."</p><p>"Look, all of us-"</p><p>"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it."</p><p>"You're not going alone!"</p><p>"You gonna stop me?"</p><p><em>I'm going to kill someone</em>.</p><p>"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds."</p><p>"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."</p><p>"Put on the suit-"</p><p>"Oh my God," Banner says, and an explosion hits and the floor gives way.</p><p>Natasha falls, her stomach flying into her mouth, and her tired brain doesn't catch up until the floor is rushing at her. She lands, almost face first, her hands out in front of her. Her head smacks forward, then back, lights bursting in front of her eyes like fireworks.</p><p>There's an alarm going off. Her hair is in her face.</p><p>Why didn't she-?</p><p>Natasha shakes her head slowly, sluggish thoughts climbing to their feet.</p><p>Why didn't she tie her hair up?</p><p>Her ears are ringing. Barton. It's him.</p><p>Banner is beside her, groaning softly. He's awake. The floor is cold.</p><p>Equipment room beneath the lab. Somewhere near, there's a burst pipe hissing steam into the room.</p><p>Banner's eyes are green. Adrenaline, adrenaline. She's on her last tether.</p><p>"I'm okay," she mumbles, to herself. "We're okay. Right?" </p><p>Banner groans again. He's convulsing, his muscles are writhing beneath his skin.</p><p>There's something heavy on her, trapping her leg above the knee. Every impulse in her head is screaming out orders, run, fight, kick out. She'll break her leg if she moves to the left.</p><p>"God," Banner moans, his forehead pressed to the floor. </p><p>Attack dog. Bark, little wolf.</p><p>She needs to calm him down. She can't think straight. Her veins are buzzing with everything her brain can think to release. </p><p>"Doctor..." she says. "Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants." She can't speak properly, crushed against the floor like this. Her leg gives a twinge. "We're gonna be okay." Bruce grunts. She can't do it. She can't. "Listen to me."</p><p>She sees two shapes through the mist of dust and steam and the hair in her eyes.</p><p>"Are you okay?" one of them calls, tentatively. She waves at them, furiously, and they scarper.</p><p>"We're gonna be okay, alright?" Her voice is shaking now. His back is arching, and she's losing this fight. "I swear, on my life-"</p><p><em>You should never make promises like that</em>, someone murmurs in her ear.</p><p>"-I am going to get you out of this, you will walk away-"</p><p>"Your life?" he roars, and she flinches. His voice has changed. It's a bitter growl, and his face has this dark greenish tinge to it. She tugs on her leg, feeling the blood rush from her face.</p><p>Something blows up, a huge shudder, and just as the lights blink out, Banner starts to grow.</p><p>"Bruce," she rasps, little more than a plea. He looks at her, through the dark, and beneath the green, she can see Bruce Banner disappear.</p><p>Okay.</p><p>Okay.</p><p>Natasha yanks her leg from beneath the pipe and scrambles for the stairs.</p><p>Not today.</p><p>∆</p><p>She finds cover, and listens to the fight through the wall. </p><p>Huge, primal roars, the clang and scrape of metal, and with each sound, she flinches, curling in on herself.</p><p>She's scared. There's no point denying it. She almost died, and that fear that drove her feet only seconds ago is clenched around her heart.</p><p>If she were religious, she would pray. But there is no God.</p><p>∆</p><p>"Does anyone have eyes on Agent Romanoff?" Maria snaps into her headset, over and over again as the Helicarrier pitches back and forth like a fairground ride. No one answers. </p><p>Beneath them, the Hulk howls and groans, ripping apart the ship.</p><p>"Sir, the Hulk will tear this place apart!" she snaps, and Fury looks at her.</p><p>"Get his attention," he says. <em>Finally</em>.</p><p>"Escort 0-6, proceed to Wishbone and engage hostile," she orders. "Don't get too close!"</p><p>"Copy."</p><p>"Keep your head clear, Agent," Fury warns, shooting her a knowing look. Maria grabs at a railing as the ship tips again.</p><p>"Yes, sir," she growls.</p><p>∆</p><p>"It's Barton," Fury crackles over the comms, right as another explosion hits the ship. Natasha can feel tears drying on her cheeks.</p><p>She's not afraid. She can't be. He's here, and she's here, and it's time to end this.</p><p>"He's headed for the detention center. Does anybody copy?"</p><p>She reaches for her earpiece.</p><p>"This is Agent Romanoff. I copy."</p><p>∆</p><p>Natasha doesn't come to find her, afterwards. Maria sits on the third step down from the bridge podium, blood drying on her temple.</p><p>Her hands are shaking.</p><p>She picks up a cracked tablet, the screen miraculously still working.</p><p>She stares at it.</p><p>Coulson is dead. Maria sits alone on the step, her knuckles white as she clutches the tablet.</p><p>∆</p><p>Maria doesn't come to find her, afterwards. Natasha nurses her bruised knuckles, and watches Clint come back to himself.</p><p>∆</p><p>She leaves without saying goodbye. Maria goes to work.</p><p>∆</p><p>Natasha leaves without saying goodbye, and every look Clint casts her is just as bad as if he'd shout, "<em>You left her behind</em>!" right in her face.</p><p>She goes to work.</p><p>∆</p><p>"I looked for you after." </p><p>Natasha doesn't turn, not when she hears it, not when Maria kicks away a piece of rubble with her boot. The afternoon is sunny and warm. There's blood on her knuckles, streaming down from a cut on her upper arm. </p><p>"I hear you in my head all the time," she says, and Maria stops moving. </p><p>"What do I say?"</p><p>"I don't know." </p><p>"You're bleeding."</p><p>"I think- you sound like a conscience."</p><p>"Natasha-" </p><p>Natasha stands, fast, too fast, and her head goes woozy. She sways and turns, and Maria is standing there, arms loose by her sides, eyes like crystals.</p><p>"You tried to nuke us," she says, and Maria looks at the sky.</p><p>"That wasn't us."</p><p>"I haven't seen you for weeks, Maria," Natasha snaps.</p><p>"You're crashing," Maria replies, almost gently, and Natasha scowls. She's right. "You're crashing, and you're bleeding, you idiot."</p><p>"I'm trying to be mad at you," Natasha says, her voice sounding weak in her head.</p><p>"If you faint, I won't carry you."</p><p>"Liar," Natasha says, right before she passes out.</p><p>∆</p><p>Natasha wakes with Maria's thumb pressed into her palm, the first thing she's aware of. Warm skin, resting just above a pressure point.</p><p>"Hi," Maria says, and that's the second thing she's aware of.</p><p>"Did you carry me?" Natasha croaks, prying her own eyes open. Maria's slumped in a chair beside Natasha's bed, still in her tac suit, bruised and smoky.</p><p>"Yes. You're a burden." Natasha curls her hand around Maria's thumb, pulls it up over the bedsheets, and kisses the tip of it. Maria brushes the pad of her thumb over Natasha's lips.</p><p>"Thank you," Natasha manages, in a puff of air. Maria runs one finger down the line of Natasha's jaw.</p><p>"I think about you all the time," Maria admits. Her eyes wander past Natasha's face, over her hair, down to her shoulder. Then her gaze flicks away.</p><p>"Which part of me?" Natasha teases, feebly. Maria looks back at her, mouth in one thin line.</p><p>"All of you," she says. "I think about you from the club, from the gym at night. I think about your smile and your hair and when you got shot in Morocco like an ass." Maria's stare is hot now, and Natasha can't look away. There are words pouring off her tongue like confessions. "I think about the first time we kissed, and the second time, and all the other times after that. I think about that sound you make when you come." Natasha flushes with pleasure, because Maria's eyes are dark and that sounded <em>hot</em> coming from her mouth.</p><p>"Sounds like a hell of a distraction," she says.</p><p>"You're joking," Maria says, "but you're right."</p><p>"You can kiss me already," Natasha replies, letting a smile creep across her face. No more crashes. Just Maria, tracing her fingers over the bones in Natasha's face.</p><p>"Alright," Maria says, and she leans forward, hand on the mattress, dipping it down, until she's hovering over Natasha. A strand of hair slips loose from behind her ear. "I might be your conscience, Natasha," she says, through her teeth, "but you are my sanity."</p><p>Maria kisses her. There's blood on her lip still, coppery and dried. Natasha squeezes her hand, and doesn't let go.</p><p>"I'm sorry I didn't come to find you," Natasha whispers. Maria pulls away and kisses her cheek. She's warm.</p><p>"I'm sorry I didn't give you time," Maria replies, breath coasting over Natasha's skin. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything."</p><p>"I'm sorry I wasted the water in your shower," Natasha murmurs, and Maria laughs against her ear.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>sorry it's been a whole month</p><p>some saucy bits at the end bc god knows we all need it lmao so if u want to skip ahead, feel free. leave me a comment/kudos/both if you liked it!</p><p>light bondage &amp; dom/sub themes, it's not particularly hardcore tbh idk what i'm doing but i thought i should probably warn ya</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The Black Widow takes the shot, from across a room thick with dancing bodies. Commander Hill crumples to the sticky floor, eyes wide open, and as she does, she says something-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Natasha?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Natasha lowers the gun. The dancing continues around her: young people wearing grotesque plastic masks, their faces twisted into smiles.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is Maria, falling as if through syrup. This is Maria, kissing her in the gym, snarling at her in tac gear, hauling her into a helicopter, launching herself at Natasha with her teeth bared. Tracing her face with soot-covered fingers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Natasha comes back to herself. The lights flicker and warp.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Too late.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Maria? Hill!" Maria is slumped in a pile now, a dark shape in the mist of chaos. The crowd parts, masked faces grinning eerily at her. Natasha launches herself across the gap and tumbles down beside Maria. Maria doesn't move. She's breathing harshly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Nat-" she tries, and a cough erupts from her throat, spraying Natasha with blood.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No!" Natasha says, discarding her gun and heaving Maria into a sitting position. Her hands come away from Maria's waist dark and red. Her heart shatters against her ribs. "I need medevac!" she growls into her comms, and the earpiece crackles helplessly back at her. "Maria, stay awake, damnit!" Maria's head is lolling back and forth. Blood spreading out slick over her neck, her chest, her jaw.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Nat," Maria says, a gasp of breath. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Stay awake," Natasha growls, grabbing her face. Her thumbs come away smeared with blood. Helpless tears are springing to her eyes, and more blood is streaming over her wrists. "Please, Maria-" Maria's eyes are glassy. "Please!" Maria's chest falls, one last breath expelling roughly from her ruined throat. "No-"</em>
</p><p>Natasha scrambles blindly awake in a bed, in sheets, a warm leg right next to her ankle.</p><p>Maria.</p><p>Natasha whips her head around, hands going everywhere, and shadows are pooling in Maria's throat and over her waist, like blood, in her eyes, turning them blank and dead. </p><p>Maria.</p><p>"Maria-" Natasha chokes, smoothing her thumbs over Maria's jaw, and they come away clean. Maria stirs awake, sleepily grasping at Natasha's wrist. Natasha's hands are trembling.</p><p>"Nat," she mumbles. "...what?"</p><p>Maria.</p><p>"Oh, God," Natasha gasps, falling against her, solid and alive and <em>not</em> soaked in blood. She buries her head in Maria's bare shoulder, nosing against her skin. Maria brings a hand up tentatively to Natasha's spine, warm and slow. Natasha presses a kiss into Maria's clavicle, and it's only then that she realises she's still crying.</p><p>"Dream?" Maria murmurs into her ear. Her voice is sleep-rough, muffled in Natasha's hair in a way that makes it seem like Natasha's ears are full of spiderwebs. Her fingers dig firmly into Natasha's spine, skin burning against her back.</p><p>"I'm okay," Natasha says, even though she's shaking like a leaf and she feels frail and brittle and shamed and anything but okay. She feels like she could throw up, like there's acid pooling on her tongue. Maria's nails slide against the back of Natasha's neck, right up where her spine slots into her skull, and Natasha shudders, her eyes closing. She pushes her cheek into Maria's shoulder, her eyelashes scraping skin. She can't fall asleep again. Who knows what might be waiting for her on the other side?</p><p>∆</p><p>The next time Natasha wakes, Maria is out of bed and the sheets are rumpled in a whirl beneath Natasha's arm. It's six in the morning. Sunlight is bleeding through a gap in the curtains, draping the floor in gold. Natasha drags the sheets wearily up over her bare chest, and then they catch on her heel and she tugs once and gives up, letting them drape over her stomach instead.</p><p>The bedroom door opens and Maria steps in, towelling her hair dry. Natasha watched her through half-lidded eyes, the muscles of her shoulders coiling under her skin, droplets of water flashing like jewels in the early morning light, the flash of a blue eye through the towel.</p><p>"Morning," Maria says, stooping to swipe her uniform shirt off the floor. She hadn't exactly had time to fold it last night. Natasha grins. Maria catches her expression and rolls her eyes. "Get dressed." Her gaze slips down to Natasha's bare torso and her jaw works almost hungrily. Natasha shivers in delight.</p><p>"We have time," she says.</p><p>"Yeah," Maria replies, buttoning up her shirt and sitting heavily on the bed. "Time for you to tell me exactly what the hell happened last night." Natasha frowns. Maria tilts her head. "I'm not talking about the sex, Natasha. I'm talking about when you woke me up at two in the morning in tears." Oh. Right. Natasha wriggles down into her sheet. Maria looks characteristically worried, but there's something raw on her face that Natasha can only catch in private, when Maria turns her face away, when Maria loses contact with an op, when Maria wants to talk like adults instead of turning it into bruising kisses and Natasha's mouth between her legs.</p><p>"I had- a dream," Natasha says. Maria waits. Natasha remembers how to breathe, remembers how to forget little flashes of nightmares, and in that time, Maria has struggled into her trousers. "About the nightclub. I dreamt I shot you." Maria's fingers go still on the fastenings of her belt.</p><p>"Right," she says, after entirely too long. She fiddles with her belt. She's too calm for Natasha's liking. "How many times have you dreamt that?"</p><p>"Once," Natasha lies. A silence clouds between them like a friction storm.</p><p>"You should-"</p><p>"I'm not going to see Saraya," Natasha bites out. Saraya is a therapist that Tony hired, if and when any of the Avengers needed her. Mostly, Natasha imagines, Saraya has her hands full with Steve and Tony. </p><p>She doesn't like psychiatrists, anyhow. She'd rather no one had a way into her head anymore.</p><p>"I was going to say you should take a day off," Maria replies calmly. She's tugging on her socks now, and Natasha lets herself get lost in the work and stretch and roll of Maria's hands, her knuckles, the red mark on her wrist from last night.</p><p>"I can't," Natasha says, dragging herself back to the surface, and Maria looks over her shoulder. There's a crease on her cheek from the pillow, a faint mark just beneath her collar, and a few eyelashes in the corner of her eye are sticking together. Natasha fumbles for her words for a second. She shouldn't be caught off guard just by one look. Maria's not dressed up, not in makeup, not sweat-slick and grinning, not barely conscious and bleeding out. So Natasha shouldn't have a weight in her throat, as if there's a boot there and any second, pressure will be applied, crushing her, stealing the air from her lungs. She shouldn't want Maria, right now. In front of her, slowly coming awake and waiting for her answer, is Maria Hill in her barest form, and Natasha for some reason, wants <em>that</em>.</p><p>That isn't what this was supposed to be about.</p><p>She shouldn't be waking up in a cold sweat and reaching for Maria. It's not supposed to be this way.</p><p>She takes too long, and Maria stands, obviously under the impression that Natasha won't answer.</p><p>"I'll see you tonight," she says, and she's out of the door before Natasha can even open her mouth.</p><p>∆</p><p>They don't see each other that night. That night, Natasha is struggling into a parachute somewhere over the Indian Ocean with Rollins ogling her ass, and she can't help but think of Maria in the Ops Command Centre of the Hub, tired and stoic and ready to go home.</p><p>The mission is anything but easy. She doesn't feel guilty about pissing off Captain America, that's not it.</p><p>Well. Maybe it is. Maybe ten percent is Steve Rogers and his Disappointed Look and Righteous Confusion right in her face as she's trying to do her sneaky, illicit, morally erring job to earn her uneasily spent money, but that's not all it is.</p><p>It's been a year since she's last had that nightmare, that particular one. Mostly it's been falling buildings and aliens with too many teeth and blank-eyed Clint and being chased down a never-ending corridor with the Hulk breathing down her neck.</p><p>But then, most nights she leaves Maria's apartment the second she's sure that Maria's fallen asleep.</p><p>She's not used to waking up and having a warm ankle half an inch away from her own.</p><p>So the mission is anything but easy, because Natasha's stuck in her thoughts when a French pirate grabs her from behind, and she has to snap his neck, which puts her in a very bad mood.</p><p>She's ready for the berating she'll get from Fury when she returns to the Triskelion for a body count on a no casualty mission, but it never comes, and a sort of uneasy suspicion settles beside her bad mood.</p><p>The next day, Natasha takes a day off. The paperwork from the mission stays on her kitchen table, and she flicks through TV channels on her couch. Cartoons come on and she toasts Clint's spirit with her beer. She misses him. He wouldn't be much help right now even if he were here, but she can imagine him worming around in the grass or having to keep a straight face undercover, on his secret mission in Classified, Undisclosed Location. She hesitates, then toasts May as well. Dragged back into the fray on a nineties Bus and another top secret mission.</p><p>She starts to feel a little silly when the news comes on. Neither of them are here with her. Maybe she's just going round the bend, if she didn't go that route twenty four years ago.</p><p>Maria doesn't answer her phone all day. Natasha's in the mood for a frenzied bang in a closet somewhere, but she can't exactly hop off to the Hub on a moment's notice. She eyes her paperwork and think's about Maria's thumb pressed into her palm as she lay on a bloodstained hospital bed. That touch had been right above a pressure point. Maria could have pushed down and disabled Natasha's wrist.</p><p>But she doesn't think like that.</p><p>
  <em>Doesn't she?</em>
</p><p>∆</p><p>Natasha wakes in the dark with her blanket twisted around her legs and her phone buzzing itself desperately off the coffee table. She catches it before it hits the carpet and presses answer.</p><p>"Maria?"</p><p>"<em>Bethesda ER, stat.</em>" And she hangs up. Natasha stares at the blank screen for a second.</p><p>It's not until she's kissing Captain America on an escalator in DC's mall and grinning at the way his ears turn red that she figures yeah, it <em>is</em> Steve Rogers and his Disappointed Look and Righteous Confusion right in her face as she's trying to do her sneaky, illicit, morally erring non-job that makes her feel guilty.</p><p>He has this puppy-dog look about him.</p><p>∆</p><p>He doesn't even look over as she approaches.</p><p>"You called me?" she says, to announce her presence.</p><p>"About an hour ago," Sitwell replies. "Where've you been?" There should be a <em>Deputy Director, ma'am</em> on the end of that sentence. Maria attempts not to push it, but her next sentence comes out cold.</p><p>"Arranging a funeral." Now he looks at her.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says, looking remarkably <em>not</em> sorry. Then he turns to the monitor in front of him. "I was wondering if you knew anything about this." He switches it on, to a security camera feed in a mall, and the feed zooms into to: <em>Natasha</em>. With Rogers, side by side at an Apple Store computer.</p><p>Maria's well practiced at hiding expression, emotion, keeping a blank stone face. Sitwell peers at her, the light glaring off his glasses.</p><p>"No," she says, "but I'm not surprised." Really, who would be? She keeps her eyes on Natasha's face, the first time she's seen her in days, for as long as she can. "That's Captain America you're after. He tends to inspire a certain amount of loyalty." She lets the tiniest smile creep across her face. Sitwell is staring at her, face slightly skewed, like he's just been force-fed a large bug.</p><p>She doesn't have time for this. She's got a national hero to save.</p><p>Maria turns to walk away, and Sitwell, like he knows he's lost the stage, calls after her.</p><p>"When's the service?"</p><p>"Friday," she lies.</p><p>"As soon as it's finished, you're going back to New York," he says, and Maria stops walking. She turns, against her better senses.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"You're off the investigation," Sitwell replies, hands in his pockets, walking towards her like he's got all the time in the world. Stalking her down.</p><p>She could get him from here. There's a gun under her jacket, and she would bet she could go for it and put a bullet right between his eyes before he even has time to blink. The way he's speaking to her, giving her orders, talking down to her. It's always been this way, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make her spitting mad.</p><p>"The Director feels your direction to Captain Rogers is a liability." Maria can't help but stare at him.</p><p>It's not that. It might be, a little, but she knows what it is. It's the fact that she was Fury's left eye and right hand, and still is, and now that they think he's dead, all they've got to do is shunt her aside. There'll be a bomb, a gas explosion, a collapsing stair, waiting for her in New York.</p><p>"S.H.I.E.L.D demands loyalty, too," says Sitwell, and Maria thinks really hard about punching him square on his smug, hypocritical little nose.</p><p>∆</p><p>He could let her sit in silence, drying her hair with that <em>look</em> on her face, but he's not going to. </p><p>"Hey," Steve says, leaning against the door to the bathroom, and she looks up. He can see her face flickering from surprise, to blank. "You okay?"</p><p>"Yeah," she says. She's lying.</p><p>"What's going on?" he asks. She looks at her hands, tugs on her hair, and there's a faraway look glazing her eyes. She's thinking about someone else.</p><p>"When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D," she starts, slowly, "I thought I was going straight." He knows that feeling. That you have to find something <em>right</em> to do, in a strange new world, or nothing will be worth it anymore. " But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but..." she shrugs, a sad little smile crossing her face. "I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."</p><p>"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve says, and the way she looks at him then: it's like he's just given her the world on a plate for ninety-nine cents.</p><p>∆</p><p>Maria knows Natasha will be angry. But that will be nothing compared to the energy Maria can feel crawling up her spine when she sees Natasha bleeding out in restraints, her cheeks grey and her breath struggling from her throat.</p><p>Maria lets it build. The Hydra bastard sitting two feet from her has his finger stroking his trigger.</p><p>"We need to put pressure on that wound, or she's gonna bleed out right here in the truck," Rogers' new friend protests. <em>I know</em>, Maria thinks. She jerks out at him, stun baton crackling, and he flinches, but the other guard doesn't even twitch. One. Two. <em>Three.</em></p><p>She twists the baton and slams it into the guard's chest. He shouts, gurgles, and she torques and kicks him, brutally hard in the head. He slumps against the window. </p><p>The new guy goggles at her. Natasha barely blinks, and her eyelids are drooping closed.</p><p>Maria scrambles for her helmet, and yanks it away with a groan.</p><p>"That thing was squeezing my brain," she says. The new guy is still staring. There's a huge, mottled bruise on his cheek. Maria looks at Steve, even though she wants to spring across the van and untie Natasha and hold her and stitch her closed and maybe even kiss her if she'd let her close. She knows Natasha would object, protest like the idiot she is. So, Maria looks at Steve, and God, this has to be the hardest eye contact she's ever held. "Who's this guy?" she asks, and she's surprised when it doesn't come out mangled.</p><p>Steve gets over his surprise quickly.</p><p>"This is Sam," he says. "Ex-pararescue." Maria should wait for a longer explanation, but she doesn't have time for a CV right now. Besides, if Rogers isn't Hydra then he's everything Fury thought he was, and that means Sam can be trusted.</p><p>"Alright," she says, digging the Mousehole from the pocket on her vest. "Good enough for me. I'm Maria Hill."</p><p>"Nice to meet you," Sam says, and it's so absurd, polite greetings in a vehicle bound for doom, that Maria grins at him.</p><p>"Romanoff, how you doing?" she asks. She gives the Mousehole a twist, and it sparks to life.</p><p>"Holding steady," Natasha wheezes. She meets Maria's eye.</p><p>"Is there a plan?" Steve asks.</p><p>"Yeah," Maria says. She slides off her seat and into the floor, starting the burnout of a reasonably sized circle in the van floor. "Mostly hinges on a whole lot of crossed fingers, though."</p><p>"Doesn't sound like you," says Steve, but he doesn't look worried. Maria tosses him a key and he catches it easily and starts to unlock his restraints.</p><p>"Wasn't my plan," Maria says darkly. "But we make do."</p><p>∆</p><p>She's beyond angry. All that <em>wasn't sure who to trust</em> bullshit? She's never heard such a flaming pile of crap in all her life.</p><p>She's Natasha Romanoff. If Hydra had tried to recruit her, they'd all be dead by now.</p><p>Maybe she's pissed that she never noticed, that it all festered right under her nose. Maybe she's mad that Maria left her in the cold without a second thought, though she knows, they both know, Maria's loyalty goes to S.H.I.E.L.D and no one else.</p><p>Natasha sits at the laptop, fuming silently, her shoulder aching. She's half thinking of leaving. Letting them trudge through this mess on their own: then maybe they'd see they should have trusted her.</p><p>But it's not a serious thought. All she can think of is the instant relief, like heroin steaming through her body, the second she saw Maria's face under that helmet. Flushed and angry, <em>so</em> angry. Maria isn't subtle: Natasha saw her eyes boring straight into the wound with that dark, sea-blue fire.</p><p>It's kinda hot.</p><p>Fury makes it up the stairs, somehow: in the distance, she can hear his grunts and wheezes as he hauls himself up, probably hand over hand on the railing.</p><p>She doesn't go to help.</p><p>He gets there, finally, and lowers himself into a chair with a pained grunt. He's holding a black box, which he slides across the table to her.</p><p>"Hill calibrated it," he says. Natasha digs her fingers into the table and thinks about Maria, stewing downstairs, the proper mirror image of Natasha up here. Fury's looking at her all too gently, like he knows all. Nick Fury, god among mortals.</p><p>She should talk to Maria. </p><p>They've never really been a conversational couple.</p><p>They've never been a couple, period.</p><p>∆</p><p>All through the fights and the bullets and the sprays of blood and grit, she's been thinking what she'll say, <em>when this is over</em>, and <em>when we win</em>. Even if at times she didn't believe they still could: in the bunker, on the bridge, Pierce's hand wrapped like a vice around her upper arm as electricity zips wickedly through her body.</p><p>Now that it's really over: now that she's aching and bruised and dressed exactly like <em>her</em> for once, even if it is only for Capitol Hill, now that all's said and done and she still has work to do: she's forgotten everything she was meant to say.</p><p>She stands outside Maria's hotel room like an idiot, thinking about knocking. Maybe if she thinks hard enough, her hand will do it of its own accord.</p><p>In the end, she doesn't have to knock.</p><p>"Waiting for a written invitation?" Maria calls, from inside the room, and Natasha pushes back a weak smile. She opens the door; Maria's sat at the vanity, twisting her hair back into a severe bun, and she's even wearing lipstick, for God's sake. Natasha looks down. And <em>heels</em>. "Hi," Maria says, shoving a pin in against her skull. She twists her nose. "I was wondering when you'd stop by." She looks remarkably put together, for all that's happened, for all that's about to happen. Natasha should have more faith: she's known Maria for years, now. She's watched her get ready in the morning countless times, wiping away exhaustion and restlessness and applying a clean face every day.</p><p>"I-" Natasha says, and then she closes her mouth. Maria looks over, hair pins held between her teeth.</p><p>"Yeah?" she mumbles. When Natasha doesn't say anything, still searching for her words, Maria spits out the pins and they land like hailstones on the vanity tabletop. "Natasha, we should–</p><p>"I practiced," Natasha interrupts. She stops, clears her throat. Maria is staring at her, wide blue eyes, half-dressed, half-ready. Natasha's gaze wanders up the stretch of her neck, the jut of her jawbone, every angle sharp and clear. "I practiced what I was going to say."</p><p>She used to feel like she was intruding on these moments, like watching Maria build up that day's facade was something she should never have been privy to. Now, it's all she wants from Maria. She wants the private moments, these glorious few minutes in the mornings and late at night, to watch everything Maria holds close to her chest slip back up to the surface. She wants Maria, not the Deputy Director, not Agent Hill, not a stranger who's been following her around the world, watching her every step, and is blinking at her from across a nightclub filled with noise and bodies.</p><p>She wants Maria.</p><p>"Okay," Maria says quietly.</p><p>"So– just let me have this. Let me talk for a second." She feels stupid and selfish, but Maria nods along, steady gaze. "You're one of the only constants in my life. You're always there, and I always need you, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now that-" she can't look away, not now, because Maria's eyes are electricity, lightning in between the two of them, and Natasha can feel it raising the hairs on her arms "-now that S.H.I.E.L.D's gone, and everything's...collapsed, I still want that. I still want you. I guess, what I'm trying to say-" she takes a deep breath, but all that comes of it is a light head "-is that I love you."</p><p>The silence that follows is the longest and most painful in Natasha's life.</p><p>Maria doesn't even twitch.</p><p>"Oh," she says. Her mouth forms the word perfectly, round and soft, and if Natasha weren't thinking about turning and bolting, she'd want to kiss her for it. </p><p>She can feel every heartbeat, and every single panicky thump goes <em>you fucked up</em>. Telling her that stripping away her skin, pulling back everything to show Maria how much she meant to her, had been a terrible mistake.</p><p>Natasha can see Maria's head going a hundred miles an hour behind her eyes.</p><p>"Will you say something?" she manages, harshly, and Maria looks at her, really looks at her. Maybe she finally sees her properly.</p><p>"I love you, too," she says. </p><p>Well.</p><p>It could be Armistice Day in Natasha's head, the Fourth of July and Steve Roger's birthday and Christmas and the first man on the moon a hundred times over, and yet none of it compares.</p><p>"Right," Natasha says, because what else can she say? Those words are roaring in her head like a jubilant crowd. Maria is smiling, finally, grinning like a fool, teeth like pearls and her nose screwed up by her eyebrows.</p><p>"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she asks. Natasha starts forward, remembering how to use her knees, but before she can make it two feet, Maria grabs her by the waist and hauls her onto her lap.</p><p>"Hi," Natasha says, stupidly, inches from the most perfectly formed woman she's ever seen before in her life. Maria's warm breath coasts over her cheek, and Maria kisses her.</p><p>It has to be better than ever before. Natasha can taste her lipstick, she can feel it smudging over her face, and Maria's mouth is hot against her own. Maria's fingers dig into Natasha's spine, bunching up her jacket, and she twists to lean Natasha up against the vanity, muscle flexing under her skin.</p><p>"'m ruining your makeup," Natasha mumbles against Maria's mouth.</p><p>"Don't care," Maria growls. The corner of the vanity digs into Natasha's back. Maria kisses her jaw, her neck, right beneath her ear, and Natasha shivers in delight. "I love you," Maria repeats, right against her ear, and then she sinks her teeth into Natasha's neck and Natasha makes a sound, halfway between a gasp and a moan. Maria's hands, cold at the fingertips, push Natasha's jacket up, rucking up her shirt, and drawing circles on her back. Natasha wants to dig her hands into Maria's hair: she tugs at the half-done bun, yanking out pins as Maria presses kisses into her skin, all the way down her neck to her collarbone, wet and hot in the hollow behind. Maria's hair gets caught and she hisses against Natasha's sternum, but when Natasha looks down, Maria's eyes are half-lidded in pleasure. Natasha grins.</p><p>"Aren't you going to undress me, soldier?" she teases, tugging on a handful of Maria's hair. "Or do I have to do it myself?"</p><p>"Patience is a virtue," Maria says, and then she links her arm around Natasha's waist, and in one motion, heaves her smoothly onto the vanity. Bottles and brushes and hairpins go everywhere, clattering to the floor, and Maria ignores them, pressing her lips into the hollow of Natasha's throat, a burning kiss that drags a raw gasp from Natasha's mouth. "And I'm not a soldier anymore," she says, the hum of her voice pulsing into Natasha's veins. </p><p>Maria pushes Natasha's jacket roughly off her shoulders, digs her fingers under Natasha's shirt and pulls it right over her head, breaking Natasha's hold in her hair. Maria steps right up in between her legs, pressing herself close to kiss all the way down Natasha's shoulder, soft around the edges of Natasha's bandage. Natasha doesn't want her to be soft. The vanity creaks dangerously when Natasha rocks against her.</p><p>"We're gonna break the table," Maria says, drawing back, as if she's suddenly found her sense, and Natasha grabs her collar and kisses her again, hooking her knees around Maria's narrow hips.</p><p>"Good," she growls, against Maria's teeth, and she claws at the fabric over Maria's shoulder. "Get this off."</p><p>"You get it off," Maria pants, breathless, her thumbs playing across Natasha's abs. She kisses Natasha again, nails leaving scores against Natasha's skin. "Zip at the back," she adds, in answer to Natasha's wandering hands. Natasha squeezes her ass once for good measure, and Maria laughs against Natasha's lips, just a small huff of breath and a <em>hic</em> of a giggle, but <em>God</em>  Natasha wants to keep tasting that sound forever. She grabs the zip and yanks, and the dress falls apart smoothly, sliding off Maria's muscled shoulders. Natasha's hands follow it down her arms, leaving red scores on her skin, and Maria's teeth close on Natasha's bottom lip.</p><p>"I love you," Natasha says, licking at the seam of Maria's lips, just to test the words out. They feel easy in her mouth.</p><p>One of Maria's hands land on her thigh, the other flicking open the button on her pants and shoving them down. Her palm burns Natasha's skin, like the prick of cold air in her lungs, like the sting of the sun in her eyes. Natasha leans down and places a kiss against Maria's sternum, hard, swirling her tongue against Maria's skin. She moves down, to the soft skin of Maria's breast, along the line of her bra, and Maria's hands tighten over Natasha's hips.</p><p>"Can I take these off?" Maria asks, into Natasha's hair, her nails digging into Natasha's skin. Natasha mumbles an affirmative against Maria's breast and lifts her hips, and Maria drags the pants down Natasha's thighs ever so slowly, pausing to flatten her palms over Natasha's skin. "You're beautiful," she says, and Natasha almost glows. Maria reaches her ankles and kneels down to tug Natasha's shoes off, and then the pants are gone completely and Maria is kissing her calves, the inside of her knee, all the way up her thigh, as her fingers trace invisible patterns into Natasha's skin.</p><p>Natasha winds her fingers through Maria's hair again. She's wound tight, and she's only getting more frustrated with each kiss, with each warm huff of breath over her thigh.</p><p>"God's sake, Maria," she groans. Maria loops one hand loosely around Natasha's ankle and then she looks up, and her pupils are blown wide and her mouth is a pink mess of lipstick and kisses, and holding Natasha's gaze, she presses one more kiss, into Natasha's hipbone. Natasha would swear she's never seen anything more beautiful in her life.</p><p>Maria hooks her fingers under Natasha's underwear and pulls them smoothly down as Natasha lifts her hips: her entire body is trembling with anticipation now, one hand braced on the edge of the vanity, the other tangled in Maria's hair, and her breath is coming in harsh, irregular pants, seeming to steam red in the crackling air. Maria rolls the underwear over Natasha's knee, bending her head to kiss the top of Natasha's thigh.</p><p>"Go on," Natasha gasps. She's wet, embarrassingly so, hot desire curling behind her hips. Maria smiles against her skin, tossing the underwear carelessly over her shoulder, and with another searing kiss and another bolt of arousal, Natasha realises. "I'm not going to beg for it, Maria," she says breathlessly.</p><p>"Just waiting for an affirmative," Maria replies, and she's sly and teasing. Natasha tugs on Maria's hair, and the vanity creaks beneath her hand. Maria waits, and waits, ghosting her lips over Natasha's leg.</p><p>"<em>Fuck</em> me already," Natasha moans, a demand when she can't keep it back any longer, and Maria makes a sound against her skin, nudging her knees apart. Natasha breathes, shakily. "Now," she snarls.</p><p>Maria doesn't wait another second. She rolls her tongue and pushes in, teeth and lips and sudden heaven, and Natasha throws her head back, her jaw falling open. Maria flattens her tongue and moves up to hit Natasha's clit, and with that fizz between her legs, Natasha's thighs twitch closed. Maria makes a sound against Natasha, a thrill, a hum, and then she slides her thumb in and curls it, and Natasha shudders silently in overwhelming pleasure, her eyes closed, her hand clenched hard in Maria's hair.</p><p>Maria changes pace then, faster, sloppier, and Natasha's hips flick up of their own accord.</p><p>"Fuck–" she manages, less than speech, more than loose breath. It takes a long few minutes, but soon Natasha can feel it coming, racing up her trembling legs, wrapping itself hard around her spine. Maria lets it creep up on her, she lets it build fast and peak slow, and then she sucks hard on Natasha's clit and Natasha comes, ecstasy filling her head, her frozen lungs, prickling and hot in her stomach. She comes with a loud curse and nothing else, silence as she rides it out, sucking in lungfuls of air. Maria rubs her through it, her cheek slick and wet and warm against Natasha's thigh, lazy now, pleased with herself.</p><p>Natasha makes an effort to release her grip on Maria's hair, and she expels all those breaths she took, in one long shaky sigh. Maria looks up from between Natasha's legs. Her eyes are dark, and she licks her lips absentmindedly: Natasha shudders again at that, a last aftershock of pleasure.</p><p>"Christ," she gasps, hoarse, for some reason. She clears her throat and tips her head back. The lush white ceiling fills her vision. "Get on the bed," she orders. Maria's nails dig into the side of Natasha's knee, and she presses a wet kiss into Natasha's thigh. It cools quickly. "I said get on the bed," Natasha says again, raspy. Maria's hands leave her legs, there's a creak as she pushes herself to her feet using the vanity, and then she walks away, soft steps on the carpet.</p><p>Natasha takes a second to gather herself.</p><p>She slips off the vanity, leaving a lewd wet smear in her wake, and on steady legs, makes her way to the bed. Maria is sprawled on it, her chin obscenely wet and her eyes like pools of blue ink.</p><p>"Happy with yourself?" Natasha asks, unclasping her own bra with one hand and flinging it aside. Maria stares unabashedly at her chest and Natasha lets that hungry look go straight to her core, a bolt of arousal.</p><p>"I'd say so," Maria replies. She's grinning lazily. Natasha sits on the end of the bed, right by Maria's ankle. She reaches out, nails scraping Maria's talus, and she digs in, leaving a small red crescent. There's a scar on Maria's shin, just above her heel, and Natasha knows exactly where it is; she runs the pads of her fingers over it. It's delicate and small, but she feels the rise of it under her finger. Maria's breathing heavier now, her bottom lip sucked in between her teeth. Natasha wants to make her <em>beg</em> for it. She wants to make Maria scream.</p><p>Natasha stoops, kisses Maria's ankle, scrapes her teeth just hard enough to leave a blooming red mark. She moves up, to Maria's shin, scattered with small, shiny nicks from God knows what. Natasha kisses them all, pressing just a little too hard, a slip of tongue, a sigh of breath.</p><p>Maria's shaking by the time Natasha gets to her thighs, and <em>oh</em>, she saved that part for last. Maria's soft and muscled and trembling, her hands are clenched in the sheets, and Natasha could look at that forever. She kisses Maria's thigh, open-mouthed, teeth and tongue, and Maria gasps. Natasha goes higher, harder, her world narrowed to skin and warmth and Maria's wanton noises, until she's sucking a damn hickey right onto Maria's hipbone. Maria's underwear are soaked through, a dark patch that makes Natasha want to put her mouth there and rip them away with her teeth. She smooths her hand over Maria's left knee instead, her bullet-wound arm draping uselessly along the bedcovers. Her fingers go higher, tracing ghost-light up to the line of Maria's underwear.</p><p>Maria swears harshly.</p><p>"Language," Natasha purrs, right above Maria's navel, nosing along her skin. She moves up Maria's body, kissing every inch or so of warm skin, finding the scars and the bruises, until she meets the edge of a bra, and she makes a disgusted sound. "You're overdressed."</p><p>"Nat," Maria says. "Jesus, come on." Natasha takes her time extracting Maria from her bra, slipping the straps over her shoulders, unclasping it at the back with indecent care. When it's off, she tosses it away, somewhere over her shoulder, and then she dips her head and kisses Maria's breast, her sternum, the swell of her chest, her nipple, and Maria moans. "Nat," she chokes. Natasha digs her fingers under the edge of Maria's underwear, stroking sweat-damp skin, and without warning, she rolls the heel of her palm in between Maria's legs. Maria pushes her hips up desperately, and Natasha shoves her down.</p><p>"What do you say?" she murmurs, against Maria's breast. Maria's chest rises and falls. Natasha licks her nipple and she hisses.</p><p>"<em>Please</em>," Maria says.</p><p>"Good girl," Natasha replies, and she listens for the hitch in Maria's breathing, the slip that she remembers. <em>There</em>. Natasha yanks down Maria's underwear and pushes into her with two fingers, no warning. Maria cries out, her hands flying to Natasha's hips, and Natasha grabs them both, quick as a whip with her injured shoulder, and drags them up above Maria's head, ache in her arm be damned. She pins Maria's wrist to the plush pillow and leans up, until her mouth is pressed to the shell of Maria's ear. "Tell me what you want," she says, because she needs the confirmation, she needs to know that Maria is safe so far.</p><p>"Fuck me," Maria gasps. She's hot and <em>soaking</em> around Natasha's fingers.</p><p>"Magic word," Natasha says, squeezing Maria's wrists.</p><p>"Please!" She likes to watch perfect, stack-straight Hill break apart beneath her, and she knows Maria loves to come unravelled like this. Even if she likes to make it hard. Natasha takes up a pace, rocking in and out, and Maria closes her eyes, rolling into every movement. Natasha rolls her thumb over Maria's clit and Maria gasps, and when Natasha adds another finger, Maria groans. Her lips curl up at the edges. Natasha keeps a harsh grip on Maria's wrists, and she can feel with each crook of her fingers inside, how much closer Maria gets.</p><p>When Maria's right on the edge, lip between her teeth and her nose screwed up between her eyebrows, Natasha kisses her cheek and presses her lips right close to Maria's ear.</p><p>"I love you," she says, and Maria comes apart with a wild cry. Her hips buck up, her eyes squeeze shut, she strains against the hold on her wrist, and Natasha rolls her hand, rubbing Maria through it. It's a high, whispering that into Maria's ear and then watching her fall to pieces at those words. Maria comes down breathing hard, her legs trembling, lips parted. There are round bruises forming on her thighs from Natasha's kisses, her bottom lip is swollen, her hair is a mess and she's covered in a sheen sweat and other things.</p><p>Natasha was wrong before. It's <em>now</em> that's she's never seen a more beautiful scene in her life.</p><p>∆</p><p>They take a half hour for themselves, tangled in a sweaty heap, smelling of sex and ruined makeup. Maria's skin starts to cool, and when she shivers, Natasha draws the sheets over them and combs her fingers through Maria's tangled hair.</p><p>"I love you," Natasha says, over and over again, pressing the words into the nape of Maria's neck, under her third rib, in the crook of her elbow, all the odd places that Maria has never been loved. She says it back every time, her hands flat against the expanses of Natasha's muscled back.</p><p>Maria has never felt like this. She has never been happy in this way, safe like this, curled around Natasha Romanoff under rumpled hotel sheets, still sticky and hot and smiling like an idiot. She can take on the world now, with this singular memory tucked away in her head like a glorious secret. She can take on the world with <em>I love you</em> draped like a prayer, like a shield, over every inch of her body.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>&lt;3 i definitely need some form of penance after writing this, but as i'm not religious anymore, i guess youse will have to do my purgatory for me 🙏 stay safe ily</p><p>P.S: Age of Ultron Blackhill BONUS coming soon ;) if you want me to alert u to its publication, say in the comments and i'll either gift it to u or tag you on Tumblr (if you give your url of course, i'm not a wizard)</p>
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